** EDO BLOWN AWAY — HIROKAGE'S COMIC GALE ON SHIN-ŌHASHI BRIDGE, THE SAME BRIDGE AS HIROSHIGE'S FAMOUS SUDDEN SHOWER ** UTAGAWA HIROKAGE (active c. 1855–1865) Title: 江戸名所道化尽 七 新大橋の大風 (Shin-Ōhashi no ōkaze), No. 7: Strong Wind on Shin-Ōhashi Bridge Series: Edo meisho dōke zukushi (江戸名所道化尽), Comical Views of Famous Places in Edo Date: Ansei 6 (1859) Publisher: Tsujiokaya Bunsuke (Kinshōdō) Signature / seals: Hirokage ga (廣景画), with censor's, publisher's and carver's seals Format: Ōban tate-e, 36 × 24 cm Technique: Woodblock print (mokuhanga), polychrome (nishiki-e) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Condition Strong impression with colours well perserved. Woodgrain clearly visible!. A minor repair noted on the left margin outside the image area. The right margin is trimmed. The paper is sound. Good overall! Please check the images! --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE PRINT Shin-Ōhashi, the "New Great Bridge", was built in 1693 over the Sumida River. It linked the Nihonbashi side of Edo with Fukagawa and was one of the city's best-known crossings. Two years before this print appeared, Utagawa Hiroshige made the bridge world-famous with Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake, from his One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. That print was later copied by Van Gogh. Hirokage was Hiroshige's pupil, and in this series he took his teacher's genre in a new direction. Edo meisho dōke zukushi was published by Tsujiokaya Bunsuke between 1859 and 1861. Each sheet shows a famous place in Edo, but the real subject is a comic mishap happening there. As the Victoria and Albert Museum notes of this design, the human comedy matters more than the view itself: a gusting wind sweeping through the city throws the people on the bridge into complete disarray. Hirokage's reputation rests mainly on this series and on his 1859 triptych The Great Battle between the Fruits and Vegetables and the Fish. His prints are much less common than Hiroshige's. Impressions of this design are held by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Other sheets from the series are in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Library of Congress.